FastJet Plans 15-Strong Airbus Fleet in Africa Discount Push

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- FastJet, the African discount airline
startup backed EasyJet Plc’s Stelios Haji-Ioannou, said it aims
to operate 15 leased Airbus SAS aircraft within a year and will
be a prospective customer for new models from the European
planemaker and U.S. rival Boeing Co.

FastJet will add five leased A319 jetliners, which can seat
as many as 156 people, within six months, before building up to
three times that number, London-based holding company Rubicon
Diversified Investments Plc said today in a statement.

Africa’s first continent-wide, low-cost airline will use
operating licenses held by majority owner Lonrho Plc’s existing
Fly540 unit to establish flights in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and
Angola. The company opted for an Airbus-based fleet after saying
last month that E-190 regional jets from Embraer SA of Brazil
were also under consideration.

“The decision to launch FastJet with the Airbus A319 will
offer unit costs low enough for us to cut fares and stimulate
the market,” Rubicon Chief Executive Officer Ed Winter said in
an interview. The airline is likely to move toward purchasing
its own planes in three to five years, with the Airbus A320 neo
and Boeing 737 MAX the most likely contenders, he said.

Capacity Boost

The first aircraft will be leased from Nomura Babcock Brown
Co. and are scheduled for handover as early as September,
Rubicon said, with further deliveries due later in the year.

The initial five jets should double Fly540’s capacity to
the equivalent of 1.5 million passengers a year within six
months, Winter said, with each aircraft potentially carrying
upwards of 250,000 passengers.

A rise in GDP and consumer spending means Africa is ready
to support a discount carrier of the kind that has transformed
aviation elsewhere, according to Winter, who has worked at
EasyJet and British Airways. Like carriers from Southwest
Airlines Co. in the U.S. to Malaysia’s AirAsia Bhd., Fastjet
aims to create a market using fares low enough to persuade some
people to fly for the first time and others to travel more.

The four markets to be targeted by Fastjet all have large-scale oil or gas developments, from which wealth is beginning to
trickle down to a growing middle class, the executive said.

The airline was established after Rubicon bought Lonrho
Aviation, which runs Fly540, in an $85.7 million all-stock
reverse takeover which gave Lonrho a 73.7 percent holding.

EasyJet founder and No. 1 shareholder Stelios, who goes by
his first name, has a 5 percent stake in Rubicon and will
receive 0.5 percent of its revenue for providing consulting
services and use of the Fastjet name, which he owns. The
discount aviation pioneer also nominated Winter as CEO and will
sit on Rubicon’s board.

While European discount operators fly to north Africa and
there have been experiments with low-cost carriers south of the
Sahara, no pan-continental service has so far been attempted.